How did "swift boat" become the term? I ask, rather, how "ratfuck" became the term. Personally, I think actual rats (and probably actual pumas) deserve better than to be compared with people who perpetrate that sort of crap. I once shared a house with a (caged) pet rat who was a far better creature than any of the Swift Vote Brats. Even pond scum does not deserve to be compared with them.

So, hipparchia, what do you think? Are the PUMAs primarily a GOP front org, as it appears?

Thanks, hipparchia. It looks as if Amanda oversimplified matters. PUMAs come in quite a few varieties, apparently.

In any case, I am not one. My commitment to voting strategically overrides any distaste I have for Obama's negatives, and for a proactive civil liberties advocate like me, he does have some significant negatives. At this point, though, there is nothing more important than stopping McCain... nothing. Ask me again in a couple of years; you may get a different answer about my priorities... but I could never support McCain or approve of other people's supporting McCain.

(And now I must work around Blogger's CAPTCHA, which has jammed a w and a v together with no way of telling where they are separated...)

unreadable captchas: i just type in any old string of letters, 8 or fewer characters [copying your comment to clipboard first]. if it doesn't match the page refreshes with another one. i have trouble reading maybe 20-30% of them.

over-simplification, yep, it's a problem. amanda, and many others, completely marginalizes those who have legitimate criticisms of the process and/or candidate and who are willing to go some lengths to be heard.

i promise to not vote for mccain, but that's the only commitment i'm willing to make at this point.